Stimulants

Study details Medicaid-insured birth cohort’s exposure to psychiatric medications and mental health services.

According to the Wall Street Journal's, story on a June study of 4000 Qubequois students, "a growing body of research finds that in the...

Study uncovers teachers’ attitudes surrounding ADHD medication use and examines the influence of race and social class on teacher beliefs.

Street drug dealers and stimulant-peddling doctors both get clients high and addicted for profit. So there is really no difference between what they do except that doctors are more ‘successful’ at it, since they enjoy many advantages over illicit dealers and can get away with doing it legally.

Individuals diagnosed with psychotic disorders have an earlier onset of psychosis if they have previously been exposed to prescription stimulants, according to new research currently in press in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

An 11-year study of 937,943 children in British Columbia found that boys who were relatively younger than their classmates were 41% more likely to...

My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didn’t understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.

Two new articles find that rates of ADHD diagnosis and stimulant prescription continue to rise all over the world.

Researchers detect a striking relationship between the month of school enrollment relative to peers and patterns of ADHD diagnoses in a large sample of elementary school students throughout the US.

On May 16, the New York Times ran an article titled Thousands of Toddlers Are Medicated for A.D.H.D., Report Finds, Raising Worries, by Alan Schwarz.  Here is the opening sentence: "More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outside established pediatric guidelines, according to data presented on Friday by an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

A new study published in the journal Neuroscience finds that rats given regular doses of amphetamines during adolescence have brain and behavioral changes in adulthood....

Women who were asked to play a gambling were significantly more likely to keep betting when the stakes increased if they had taken Ritalin...

In 2014, then National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director, Thomas Insel, speculated that ketamine “might be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades.” A recent review of the research suggests that while ketamine may produce a rapid short-term improvement in depression, the effect is short-lived and the potential for addiction and dependence warrants considerable caution.

A new analysis published in the The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry investigates the public health effects of direct-to-consumer advertisements for psychiatric drugs. The researchers...

The new Social Security Act, an Obamacare-inspired, Open Payments report came out September 30th. As part of the new healthcare reform policy, this federal report requires pharmaceutical and medical device companies to annually share documentation of direct payments they provided to entities such as medical practices and teaching hospitals. But before anyone gets excited and thinks there is finally a reliable and valid monitoring method to document that such payments are minimal as well as on the up and up, please note that 40% of the payment records (considered for inclusion in the 2013 Open Payments report) were not included in the $3.5 billion due to “unresolved questions” being cited.

The US Food and Drug Administration has expanded the approved uses of an ADHD drug to make it the first-ever drug treatment for "binge-eating disorder."

Since I am new on Mad in America, I will tell you; my mission is to debunk the ADHD diagnosis. My goal is to add common sense to a world where drugging kids for acting like kids is all the rage. When discussing ADHD with concerned adults I share how little is required to earn a diagnosis of ADHD. Learning just how non-scientific the diagnosis actually is, for many, is a shocking discovery.

Medicating children for a host of mental disorders has become very popular in some parts of the USA. More than 8 million kids from 6 months to 17 years of age are on pharmaceutical drugs in this wonderful country. We lead the world in drugging youth for behavioral, cognitive and attention issues. We are once again #1. But I would like to share with parents as well as adults working with children a few not so readily available facts related to medicating kids for behavior issues.

Research in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology finds that "Over the last two decades, the increased use of atypical antipsychotic medications, often...

Most US children and youth diagnosed with ADHD are taking stimulant medications, but less than one-quarter are receiving any amount of concurrent psychotherapy of...

Citing a 43 percent jump since 2003, researchers estimate that 5.8 million school-aged children and teens in the US now have an ADHD diagnosis, a staggering 12 percent of this population. The new NIH-funded analysis also found that the percentage of girls diagnosed with ADHD was up 55% and that the percentage of Hispanic children diagnosed shot up 83% over the same timeframe.

New research has found that a childhood ADHD diagnosis is not predictive of adult functioning in boys.

The New York Times describes a growing trend among doctors: prescribing medication to fix a "made up" diagnosis in children, in order to compensate...

A new article by Peter Breggin, in the journal Children & Society, outlines The Rights of Children and Parents In Regard to Children Receiving...

A commonly used ADHD diagnostic measure may find overlapping symptoms in autism and ADHD, resulting in over-diagnosis.